High voltage atmospheric cold plasma (HVACP) is an emerging non-thermal technology with short treatment time, low energy consumption, and no chemical residues on foods. Peanut samples inoculated with Aspergillus flavus spores and spiked with Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) toxin were treated with HVACP at 90 kV for 2, 5, and 10 min, and post-treatment storage times (0, 4, and 24 h) using air with different relative humidities (RH, 5, 40, and 80 %), respectively. A treatment of 5 min resulted in a 2.20 log spores reduction of A. flavus spores on peanuts. A. flavus was almost completely inactivated (99.9 %) by HVACP treatment for 10 min with 80 % RH in the air and 24 h post-treatment storage. A 71.3 % AFB1 reduction was achieved with a treatment of 2 min and 80 % RH without post-treatment. The reduction of AFB1 toxin also significantly increased with increasing treatment time, higher RH and post-treatment storage (p < 0.05). HVACP is a promising technology to effectively inactivate A. flavus and reduce AFB1 on raw peanut kernels without adversely affected peanut quality.
To improve the food safety and quality, it is crucial to develop an effective microbial decontamination approach while having minimal impact on the organoleptic characteristics and nutritional value of treated foods. Peanuts are an excellent source of plant-based protein, but they are highly susceptible to contamination with Aspergillus spp. mold, which may lead food safety issues. Cold plasma as an emerging non-thermal technology with short treatment time, low energy consumption, and no chemical residue on the food proves to be a promising tool to effectively inactivate A. flavus and reduce AFB1 on raw peanut kernels without adversely affected peanut quality.
This study explores the efficacy of plasma-processed air (PPA) as a non-thermal treatment for decontamination of dry food surfaces, such as wheat grains, black peppercorns, and onion flakes. We compared the effect of various inoculum types of Enterococcus faecium, revealing a higher resistance of the powder form compared with liquid and slurry inocula on black peppercorns. Furthermore, Enterococcus faecium NRRL B-2354 appeared to be a suitable control indicator for Salmonella. The PPA efficacy varied across matrices, being higher on medium agar (7.0 ± 0.5 log10), followed by wheat grains (2.1 ± 0.2 log10), black peppercorns (1.5 ± 0.1 log10), and no reduction on onion flakes. Variation was also found across microorganisms, as the natural microbiota was reduced on wheat grains (1.6 ± 0.6 log10 for mesophilic count and 0.8 ± 0.3 log10 for spores), while on black peppercorns this was only achieved after upscaling (1.3 ± 0.2 log10 for mesophilic and 1.5 ± 0.1 log10 for spores). The findings of this study give guidance to further optimize the application of PPA treatment by changing the technical parameter settings of the plasma setup to increase the microbial efficacy and/or combining the PPA treatment with other methods to enhance microbial control.
Acheta domesticus is a new source of high-quality protein, but the accessibility and acceptability of protein is notably limited by the particle size of the house cricket powder, and little information about the effect of particle size on the house cricket powder had been reported. In this study, four kinds of ultrafine cricket powder were obtained by two industrial methods, and compared with the traditional grinding powder. The results illustrated that ultrafine grinding technology could increase the powder properties, such as the thermal stability, crystallinity, color brightness, protein extraction rate and amino acid content, especially the essential amino acid (EAA) content were significantly improved. And the properties and nutrient release of the powder are mainly related to the particle size rather than the method. The results have a certain guiding effect on the development and application of ultrafine house cricket powder as a multifunctional nutrient.